


Feather on the Nile

by Glinda



Category: The Mummy Series
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Curses, Extortion, Multi, Period-Typical Homophobia, Polyamory, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 19:06:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7450630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a nice fantasy but that’s all it is: a fantasy. So he leaves them there, before he can be tempted by things that can never be. (It's a good plan, shame it didn't work.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feather on the Nile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elsajeni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsajeni/gifts).



> set post _The Mummy_ but pre _The Mummy Returns_ , largely because I haven't seen the second film in years...so imagine its set at some nebulous time pre-Alex.

When he leaves them in the desert, Ardeth fully expects to never see any of them again. Not because he thinks they won’t survive the desert – he’s learned by now not to underestimate Rick O’Connell’s ability to survive – but because he recognises a hero’s happy ending when he sees it. He glances back in time to see Rick and Evy embrace, silhouetted against the sunset like some romance novel cliché. He quashes the spark of envy and regret that spikes in him at the sight. Now he will never have either of them. They are so very beautiful and whenever either of them had crossed his path previously he had enjoyed the view and crushed down his desire with ruthless efficiency. His duty has always been so much more important than anything else in his life, but on his long trek back across the desert he lets himself imagine another path. Where he travels at their side seeking only knowledge and adventure, duty forgotten and devotion redirected. It’s a nice fantasy but that’s all it is: a fantasy. So he leaves them there, before he can be tempted by things that can never be. 

~ ~ ~

The first time he kisses O’Connell is in less than ideal circumstances. It’s rare that Ardeth allows himself to indulge his desires, but there are places that he can go where people don’t ask questions, where everyone’s names are a lie. He chooses badly that evening and his prospective partner recognises his tattoos and turns out to be in search of extortion material rather than anonymous mutual satisfaction. Ardeth is good enough with a weapon to keep the man at bay, fully intending to threaten him into line – he pities this man, so desperate he must sell his body and soul like this, better to scare him than scar him – but it turns out that this man has friends, a ring of professional extortioners who appear as though from nowhere. He is trapped, out manoeuvred and out gunned, until he feels the steady pressure of another back against his own and hears a familiar laugh. 

“Need a hand there, friend?” O’Connell asks breathless laughter under his words. He knows damn well that Ardeth needs assistance. Ardeth closes his eyes for a brief moment, O’Connell is both the person he most and least wants to see right now.

“Yes,” he agrees, “I really do.”

“Alright then,” O’ Connell nods, and with that they’re into the fray. 

They move like a well-oiled machine, as though they’ve fought together all their lives. They most fight hand-to-hand, silent mutual acknowledgement that quiet is better than quick in this fight. The vagabonds don’t stand a chance, their weapons are mostly for threatening rather than actual fighting, and while they fight with the scrappy viciousness of men who have survived on the streets too long, they are no match against Ardeth and O’Connell’s combined military training and discipline. 

Shortly, his assailants are all on the ground: a few dead, more unconscious and those who are neither having the sense to pretend to be so. Ardeth watches O’ Connell rifle through the pockets of the corpse of the man that had tried to blackmail him, and feels the cold chill of reality on his skin. He doesn’t know which outcome he fears most right now, that he will have to explain how he ended up in this situation or that O’ Connell will have figured it out himself. 

O’Connell definitely doesn’t need an explanation.

“Scumballs. Seriously Ardeth, don’t you have a safer arrangement for this kind of thing? Is it different for the Medjai, because in Foreign Legion guys generally just made their own mutually convenient arrangements…”

“It is different for commanders.” Ardeth replies stiffly, “beside there are those who would expect preferential treatment for it. Here at least it is – normally – an equal transaction, others with just as much to lose by being identified. Keeps things simple.”

“I guess. I mean I get it, I do. It just seems like you’d get enough of living dangerous from the day job…” O’Connell seems genuinely sympathetic but suddenly Ardeth can’t bear to be near him. To have this beautiful man so close and trying to be kind, just rubs salt in the wound of all the things he can never have. 

“Thank you,” he interrupts, shame burning in his guts, “your help was appreciated, but your pity is unnecessary, I need to go now. I’d appreciate if you did not follow me.”

He doesn’t wait to see the response that his answer provokes, though he hears O’Connell exclaim after him to wait. Usually Ardeth is an expert at disappearing in these alleyways, but perhaps because he is so shaken up or perhaps because O’Connell knows them equally well the other man catches up to Ardeth after only a short chase. Eventually tiring of the cat and mouse to hustle them into a corner where they won’t be noticed. 

“Wouldya just listen to me for a second, Ardeth?” O’Connell says, exasperated and slightly out of breath. Ardeth doesn’t have the faintest idea what the other man’s expression looks like because he can’t bring himself to look him in the face. Instead O’ Connell makes a frustrated noise and suddenly he’s kissing Ardeth. The kiss is hard but skilful, and when Ardeth gives into temptation and kisses O’Connell back it turns passionate and desperate. When O’Connell finally pulls away they’re both breathing heavily and it is O’Connell who is struggling to meet Ardeth’s eyes. He manages it eventually. 

“Like I said, I get it,” O’ Connell says wryly. “Now, will you come back to mine? If only so I don’t spent the rest of the night worrying myself sick about you?”

Ardeth feels like he’s been hanging on a cliff edge all evening and in the face of something he’s wanted for years, is powerless to resist. He follows O’Connell home. 

In the morning Ardeth wakes, pleasantly sore and oddly content. He watches O’Connell slowly come awake and allows himself to laugh aloud a little and O’Connell’s expression as he wakes and stretches, pleasure and discomfort combining on his face entertainingly. O’Connell smiles back ruefully but raises an eyebrow suggestively. It’s tempting to throw caution to the wind and push the world away for a little longer but now that he’s no longer riding the hard edge of desperation, Ardeth needs a little clarification on a few issues. 

“What of Miss Carnahan?” he asks determinedly. 

O’Connell’s expression does something complex and indecipherable before he sighs and rolls onto his back delivering his reply to the ceiling. 

“Evy is Evy. Before I never much cared whether the person I took to bed was a man or a woman, having that spark with someone, that was always more important. But then Evy came along and she…she has my heart. I’m going to marry that girl and well - that line about forsaking all others? - I intend to stick to it. I couldn’t hurt her like that.” He glances back at Ardeth and Ardeth nods his acknowledgement, “but until that day, any time you need somewhere safe to seek comfort then you’re more than welcome here.”

Ardeth appreciates his honestly, its more than he feels he has the right to ask for – more than any man has offered him since he was a wide-eyed teenager – and he pulls O’Connell back into the sheets to say thank you in the most physical way possible. 

Later while O’Connell is dressing, Ardeth takes advantage of the man’s medical kit to clean and re-dress the wound on his arm. He hears Miss Carnahan arrive before he sees her, and forces himself into stillness. Other than his lack of shirt he is dressed perfectly respectfully, a perfectly reasonable state in which to be performing first aid on oneself. Her expression on seeing him is one of unclouded delight, only transforming into concern when she sees the extent of his injuries. The sound of Miss Carnahan – Evy, she insists – fussing over them draws O’Connell through to join them. Where he rescues Ardeth from providing explanations for his presence by weaving a tale of adventure rather more swashbuckling than the grubby and rather brutal little fight they’d survived the night before. A twist of guilt roils in Ardeth’s stomach as he watches the casual tenderness and intimacy that underlies the couple’s interaction, so he submits to Evy’s insistence on finishing dressing his wounds herself. 

Ardeth feels himself almost overwhelmed by the warmth and affection of her caretaking, culminating in the firm but tender kiss she presses to his temple before whirling away to put the medical kit back on its shelf. He glances up, catching O’Connell’s eye and exchanging a wry look. Ardeth understands only too well why O’Connell would forsake all others for this woman, if she looked at him as she looks at O’Connell, he’s certain he would too. The knowledge passes between them that they would burn cities for this girl if she asked. Better for both of them that her hunger is for knowledge rather than treasure. 

Ardeth’s feelings about them are a mass ball of roiling, conflicting urges and desires that he needs time to decipher. He longs to take O’Connell up on his offer, but suspects he won’t. One thing he is completely, devastatingly certain of is, that for the sake of his sanity, it has to be both of them. 

~ ~ ~

The first time he kisses Evy, the circumstances are even less ideal. It is two days before she and O’Connell are due to be married and he’s about to head halfway across the world to reclaim yet another cursed artefact. It’s not an apocalyptic artefact this time but it is very dangerous and highly likely to claim his life in the process. Ardeth has been mostly resisting the temptation of O’Connell’s offer since the first time, but imminent likely death has convinced him that he is allowed to be selfish. 

But O’Connell is not to be found. He tracks down Evy and discovers that O’Connell is away prizing her brother Jonathon out of an unfortunate situation with some gambling debt. Ardeth sits in her office, listening to her rant about her brother and enthuse about the latest donation the museum has received, and lets her warmth and enthusiasm wash over him. She is so beautiful and so clever and so kind and he would have sworn he didn’t intend to kiss her until he found himself doing so. When he makes himself break away from the kiss, he braces for a slap that doesn’t come. Instead he finds himself under the full weight of her regard. 

“Are you dying?” Evy asks, voice utterly serious, “I’d like to think you’d tell me if the world was ending after everything we’ve been through but it’s worth asking anyway? Because I’ve been kissed by a desperate and doomed man before and I know what that feels like. Ardeth, what’s wrong?”

He allows himself to be pulled into her arms and lets her coax the whole sorry story of the cursed artefact and the doomed archaeologists out of him. Her questions are pertinent and her touch is kind, and even though she agrees with his conclusion about the likelihood of his doom he feels a little better about the whole situation. 

Several hours later he wakes upon a sofa in her office, Evy herself is at her desk – no longer asleep, fully clothed and curled on top of him – surrounded by books and arcane texts. When she glances up and notes he’s awake her face transforms with joy, she has found a few obscure snippets of information on the artefact of which he hadn’t been aware. Not much but enough to cast a shaft of light and hope on his endeavour. 

She grants him a final kiss before he takes his leave of her. It is fierce and protective and her eyes are deadly serious when she speaks. 

“Come back to us safely, do you hear? We’ll forgive you for missing the wedding as long as you come home safe.” 

“I will do my best,” he promises. It’s the best he can do in the circumstances but it seems to satisfy her. 

As he reaches the entrance hall, O’Connor and Evy’s brother appear, Carnahan giving him a wide berth as he heads towards Evy’s office. O’Connor on the other hand walks straight up to him only stopping inches away.

“World ending again Ardeth?” he asks. 

“No. Just a cursed and deadly artefact to be retrieved.” Ardeth assures him.

“A normal Thursday for you then?” Suggests O’Connor. 

“Well, before I spoke to your fiancée this morning it was one with a 97% chance of killing me too, but thanks to her research its now down to 75%.” Ardeth notes.

“Still a poor excuse for missing our wedding,” replies O’Connor, tone light but worry written clearly across his face. 

“Miss Carnahan assures me that I’m forgiven on the condition that I come back alive.” Ardeth says mirroring his tone. 

“Yeah,” concedes O’Connor, before glancing around to ensure they are unobserved. He pulls Ardeth into a bruising kiss that serves to reignite all the emotions and desires that Ardeth had spent the night before crushing back down again. Once the finally pull apart, O’Connor rests their foreheads together. “Just come back alive. Come back to us alive and all is forgiven.”

It’s not until he’s on a boat halfway across the sea that it dawns on him that they both said ‘us’. Come back to us. He has a lot of time on the boat to ponder on what they meant by that, what arrangement they have made between themselves about him. It lurks at the back of his mind throughout his adventures, underscoring the near misses along with his eventual success. He arrives back in Egypt no nearer to a conclusion. 

So he does the only sensible thing. He takes an extra long rotation on guard duty out in the desert without letting either of them know he’s back. 

~ ~ ~ 

It takes him six months for both the commitments of his calling and the strength of his determination to align so that he finds himself in the same city the O’Connells. It’s late and he doesn’t expect anyone to be at the museum but he sneaks in and wanders the familiar galleries and corridors noting what has changed and what hasn’t since he was last here. He hadn’t intended to sneak up on Evy, but she’d been up a ladder and he’d figured he’d wait until she was down from it before announcing his presence. Except she’d leaned back to get a better view of the item she was hanging on the wall, only to lean back too far and cause the already rickety ladder to creak alarmingly and wobble in slow motion. Ardeth was in motion before he had even properly realised quite what was happening. Meaning he arrived just in time to catch Evy as she fell from the ladder and end up with an armful of flailing librarian. Once she realises who he is she seems to flail even more wildly, seemingly torn between the desire to hit him or hug him and attempting to do both at once. 

Ardeth is still attempting to set her back on the ground when the kerfuffle draws O’Connell out of wherever he’d been lurking. He comes marching along the gallery like some kind of avenging angel and Ardeth lowers Evy quickly to the ground. O’Connell definitely looks more at the punch in face end of the hit or hug scale but Evy plasters herself to Ardeth’s side, locking her fingers together as though he might vanish if she lets go for a moment. In turn O’Connor merely wraps them both up in what must be a contender for the most aggressive hug Ardeth has ever experienced. 

“Where the hell have you been? You were on an incoming ship’s manifest six months ago and then you vanished. We didn’t know if you were injured or imprisoned or what. Do you know how many officials in this town we’ve bribed or lied to over the last few months? And then you stroll in here bold as brass, not a scratch on you, like you’ve never been away. You couldn’t have sent us a postcard – Curse defeated: Off back to the Desert for a bit?” O’Connell’s rambling rant runs down slowly until his head lowers gently so that their foreheads are pressed together. 

“It never occurred to you that we would be worried about you, did it?” Evy asks sadly. 

Whatever O’Connell sees in Ardeth’s expression when she says that seems to break something in his control and suddenly Ardeth is being kissed like the world might end. (Ardeth is pretty certain there are no looming apocalypses in the near future but you never can tell with the undead.) The kiss only eases when Evy speaks. (Gods that man can kiss, Ardeth can’t believe he’d forgotten how good O’Connell was at this.)

“Well, that’s one way to broach the subject.”

“What subject,” Ardeth asks turning towards Evy with considerable effort.

“This one,” she tells him and kisses him soundly herself. Between the three of them they hoist Evy up so that she can wrap her legs around Ardeth’s waist and the three of them stumble together to the nearest uncluttered wall and lose themselves in touching and kissing for long enough that Ardeth has no doubt whatsoever about what they want from him right now. 

“Come home with us,” O’Connell says.

“Alright,” Ardeth agrees and follows them home.

He loses the night in flashes. Hours that seem to speed past like minutes and moments that seem to stretch out like days. Early on they focus their attention on Evy, an unspoken agreement between Rick and himself that this is Evy’s show and it is her that needs to be sold on it if they are ever to do this again. It’s hardly a great sacrifice to spend the time worshipping every inch of her. Ardeth just never expected to find himself as the object of worship as he does later. Evy plastered to his front and Rick to his back, skin and sweat, heat and pleasure, three way kisses that somehow transformed from awkward to as essential as breathing. Safe and wanted and loved. Overwhelmed with pleasure and emotions he doesn’t realise he’s crying until he feels Evy kiss them off his face. 

“Want to stay.” He tries to explain. “Here. With you. Both. Always. Can’t though.” 

“Shh, its okay,” Evy assures him hands gentle on his face, “we wish you could stay too. You’re always welcome here, always, just…just…”

“Just come back to us when you can,” finishes Rick, his voice rough in Ardeth’s ear. “Whenever its safe to, whenever you need to, wherever we are you’re welcome. As a friend or like this. Promise.”

“Promise,” Evy echoes, voice ragged now.

“Promise,” Ardeth manages before everything gets too intense for any words at all. 

In the morning, Ardeth returns to the bedroom after relieving himself and lingers in the doorway just watching them. They look so beautiful in the early morning light, that if it weren’t for the aches and the bruises on his skin, he’d swear they were a dream. 

It can’t last. Rick and Evy have one of those epic fated loves that you read about in the kind of books that Ardeth pretends he’s never read. It’s a fantasy to think they can make this work forever. But when Evy beckons him sleepily back to bed and Rick rolls into his side muttering grumpily about people who steal the sheets Ardeth finds he doesn’t care. It may be a fantasy, but he intends to live it for as long as he can. Even if every moment needs to be stolen, then he will steal every moment he possibly can.


End file.
